Scotus Academicus, Tomus quintus: De Creaturarum Corporalium et de Homine

THE PRESENT question is difficult, and distracted by various opinions into several parts; which St. Epiphanius pursues at large haeresi 70., which is that of the Aulians, and in the Ancoratus, where he enumerates, weighs, and refutes almost all the sentiments concerning the matter: asserting that it is placed neither in the body, nor in the soul, nor in baptism or any other thing known to us. Wherefore this one thing is established by faith and tradition, that man was made to the image of God: yet no part is defined in which such a notion of image is to be situated. What nevertheless may be thought truer, and inferred from the doctrine of the holy Fathers and of the Subtle Doctor, that it may appear more evidently,

Note 1. First of all must be cast out that most detestable and utterly foolish sentiment of theirs of former days and of the Anthropomorphites, who, having been persuaded that God was corporeal and endued with human form and figure, in which namely He appeared to the Patriarchs and Prophets, as handed down in Sacred Scripture; affirmed also that man as to his body was formed to the image of God. Whom Melito thus impugned in Theodoret lib. 20. in Genesim: if God is therefore judged to have a body such as man has, because Scripture describes Him as furnished and endowed with human members, by like reasoning it would be concluded that man is not like unto God, nor made to His image and likeness. For indeed Zacharias cap. 1. describes God as having seven eyes, whereas we have but two; and Psalm 90. God is brought in as having pinions and wings, of which we are destitute; and many other things Scripture attributes to God metaphorically, which if they were taken properly and according to truth would make God enormous and monstrous, and most unlike to man. Therefore not, says Melito, in the body of man is the image of God to be sought, but in the mind, which, even as God, is itself possessed of and capable of reason, counsel, and wisdom.

Note 2. Neither ought that sentiment of Origen and of certain others be likewise admitted, who thought that "to our image" ought properly to be referred to the Son of God, whom Paul ad Coloss. 1. calls the image of the invisible God, and ad Hebraeos 1. the figure of the substance of the Father: for the name of image is assigned by Theologians properly to the Son alone among the divine Persons. These men therefore think that man was made like unto the Son of God, even as Paul ad Rom. 8. affirms that God predestinated the Elect to be made conformable to the image of His Son. But that particle "our" refutes this opinion. For if man had been made only to the likeness of the Son of God, God the Father speaking with His own Son would not have said: Let us make man to our image, but to thy image. Add, that man could not be made like unto the Son of God except according to natural or supernatural gifts: but according to either he is like unto the whole Trinity: for both are effected and given to man by the whole Trinity equally and indifferently. Whence St. Aug. in the imperfect book De Genesi ad litter. cap. 16. says: Not to the image of the Father alone, or of the Son alone, or of the Holy Spirit alone, but to the image of the very Trinity was man made: which Trinity is so a Trinity, that it is one God: it is so one God, that it is Trine. For speaking to the Son He does not say: Let us make man to thy image, or to my image, but He speaks plurally: to our image and likeness, from which plurality who would dare to separate the Holy Spirit? Which plurality, since there are not three gods, but one God, therefore it is to be understood that Scripture afterwards introduced the singular and said: And God made man to the image of God, lest it be taken as though God the Father were said to be to the image of God, that is, of His own Son: Otherwise how is true what was said, to our image, if man was made to the image of the Son alone?

Note 3. Neither ought that opinion of Eugubinus in Cosmopeia be likewise admitted, who thinks that God, that He might create man and could hold speech and colloquy with him after human manner and mode, put on human form, and therefore said: Let us make man to our image and likeness. The Son and Word of God, he says, came to the creation of man in human form, image, and habit, bearing the most beautiful and most divine form, and a beauty surpassing all things human and most pleasing. But this sentiment seems absurd: Both because St. Dionysius the Areopagite affirms all the divine apparitions which we read in Sacred Scripture to have been made by the benefit and ministry of Angels: And because either that human nature which God assumed at the beginning of the world was a true nature, and truly assumed into unity of person, in which case they would be compelled to confess that the incarnation of God took place twice, once at the end of the ages, and earlier at the beginning; and then indeed the whole Trinity would have been incarnate: for otherwise it would not truly be said, Let us make man to our image, since that "our" pertains not to one divine Person alone, but equally to all: or that nature was not a true human nature which God assumed from the beginning, but was only a certain shadow, specter, and likeness of human nature, even as we read the Angels often assumed human bodies. But if this be said, that will not be true, to our image: for that likeness of human nature was not the image of God, since nothing of it pertained to God Himself; nor would it be truly said that Adam, who was a true and perfect man, was made to the image of God; if through image, as we said, we understand not the true nature of man, but only a certain shadow and likeness of him.

First Conclusion. — THE DIVERSE SENTIMENT OF THE HOLY FATHERS CONCERNING THE NOTION AND SEAT OF THE DIVINE IMAGE IN MAN IS CHIEFLY FIVEFOLD.

For first some assimilate man to God chiefly in intelligence and knowledge. Thus Diadochus cap. 77. De perfectione spirituali, where he says: We are to the image of God according to the reason of the soul pertaining to the mind. To which is akin what Clement of Alexandria writes in 6. Stromaton: that man was made to the image of God, not on account of the figure of his structure; but because as God works all things by reason, so man, who is endowed with perfect knowledge, executes good and honest actions from rational faculty. But Clement seems to speak chiefly not of natural knowledge; but of that which befits a Christian, and him holy and perfect.

Second, some seem to place the property of this divine image in free will, as Tertullian lib. 2. contra Marcionem, cap. 5.: Free, he says, and of its own arbitrement, and of its own power, discerning no greater image and likeness of God in man than the form of such a state, God instituted man by ingenium of free and self-possessed arbitrement. For neither by face and bodily lineaments, so various in the human kind, is he expressed to uniform God: but in that substance which he drew from God Himself, that is, the mind, responding to the form of God, he is marked with the liberty and power of his own arbitrement. Then cap. following: There ought therefore to be instituted an image and likeness of God of free arbitrement and of its own power, in which this very thing should be deputed the image and likeness of God, namely the liberty and power of arbitrement: for which thing that substance is accommodated to man, which belongs to such a state, toward the state of God, certainly free, and of its own power. — St. Jerome agrees with these in Epistola 116.: God alone, he says, is He into whom sin falls not; for the rest, since they are of free arbitrement, by right, seeing man also was made to the image and likeness of God, can bend their will toward either part. St. Bernard subscribes in the treatise De libero arbitrio: for when he had distinguished in man a threefold liberty, one of arbitrement, another of counsel, a third of complacency; he concludes that in these three the image of God consists, writing thus: I think that in these three liberties is contained that very image and likeness of the Creator unto which we were created, and indeed the image in the liberty of arbitrement, but in the other two a certain bipartite beatitude follows. Hence perhaps it is that free will alone suffers no defect or diminution of itself whatever, in which chiefly a certain image of the eternal and unchangeable substance of the Divinity seems impressed: for although it has had a beginning, yet it knows no setting, nor takes increase from justice or glory, nor detriment from sin, or mercy: what more like to eternity, which is not eternity? Moreover in the other two liberties, since they can be diminished not only in part, but lost entirely, a rather accidental likeness of divine wisdom and power is recognized superducted upon their image.

Third, there are those who place the divine image and likeness in Virtue. Thus Gelasius in Actis Nicenae Synodi parte 2. cap. 16.: Good, he says, God by His nature indidit into the intelligent substance of man that, to His own image and likeness, namely goodness, simplicity, sanctity, purity, etc. Severianus subscribes Oratione 5. De mundi opificio: What is it, he says, according to the image? God is holy; if we are holy, we are to the image of God. For Be ye holy, he says, because I am holy. God is just, if we pursue justice, we are the image of God, etc. Ambrose also elegantly in the book De Bono Mortis, capite 5.: Let us flee therefore these evils, and transform our soul to that image of God and likeness. The flight of evils is the likeness of God, and by virtues the image of God is acquired: therefore He who painted us painted us as it were as author with the colors of virtues.

Fourth, some prefer the image of God placed in eternity, or immortality. Thus Faustus of Riez libr. 1. De libero arbitrio, cap. 1.: But what else, he says, is to be understood even in that very image of God in which man was created, except the badge of perpetuity? Which perpetuity you acknowledge repaired not only in the soul not taken away, but even in the body by the virtue of resurrection. And Maximus Martyr, Centuria 3. De Char., cap. 25., distinguishing image from likeness, says: On this account also man is said to be fabricated to the image of God, and to the likeness: to the image indeed, as being of Him that exists, existing, and of Him that ever exists ever existing, so that although such be not without beginning, yet it be without end; but to the likeness, as good of the good, and wise of the wise: of Him to whom by nature that is, for him to whom it is by grace. Furthermore to the image are absolutely all men; but to the likeness only the good and wise.

Fifth, the rest place this notion of image in the empire and dominion which God constituted over living creatures and the whole orb of lands for humankind, which words of Scripture seem to declare. Let us make man to our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth. Of this sentiment was John Chrysostom hom. 10. in Genesim weighing those words, And let him have dominion over the fishes, etc. Therefore, he says, man was made to the image of dominion, not as anything else: for God created man prince over all things that are on the earth: neither is anything on earth greater than he, since all things are under his power. Gregory of Nyssa subscribes to him lib. De hominis opificio: As rightly the craftsman, he says, shapes his instrument to the form which is apt for use: so the most excellent fabricating artifex designed our nature as a certain thing apt for the administration of the Kingdom: and both with the gifts of the soul and with the very figure of the body so shaped man, that he might be most apt for kingship. Marius Victor agrees in lib. 1. writing:

Now let us make man, he says, who shall reign in the world, And be the image of God: like ought he to be to his creator Free in arbitrement, who enjoys the created by mind.

Finally not a few will that this image was constituted in this, that man contains the supreme grade of being, namely of a spiritual substance powerful in reason and wisdom, no otherwise than does God: for this grade of intelligent nature, says Pererius lib. 1. in Gen. quaest. 1., has six excellent and admirable properties naturally and necessarily conjoined with itself, all of which may be discerned in our mind. One is that our mind is incorporeal and individual: Another, that it is immortal: Third, that it is endowed with intellect, will, and memory: Fourth, that it possesses free will: Fifth, that it is capable of wisdom, virtue, divine grace, and eternal felicity, which is placed in the clear vision of God: Sixth, that it excels all living creatures not only in dignity but also rules them by power. Therefore on account of this grade of intelligent nature and the aforesaid six properties, which follow upon the grade naturally and accompany it perpetually, it is most truly said, That man was made to the image and likeness of God. You will read more similar things besides these in Pererius libr. 2. De Opificio hominis. But since this notion of image, of whatsoever sort it be, rather shadows forth the unity of Deity than the Trinity of the divine majesty: therefore, that the exact notion of this divine image may be had, let

Second Conclusion. — THE NOTION OF THE DIVINE IMAGE OF MAN CONSISTS IN THIS, THAT OUR SOUL, ILLUMINED WITH THREE FACULTIES, NAMELY INTELLECT, WILL, AND MEMORY, SHADOWS FORTH THE DIVINE TRINITY OF PERSONS CONSISTING IN UNITY OF ESSENCE. Thus St. Augustine in many places, especially indeed lib. 9. De Trinitate, cap. 1. and the following, where he takes those three things which in the soul answer to so many divine Persons, such that they are mind, love, and its knowledge: or, as he says in the same place capite 11., memory, intelligence, will. St. Ambrose elegantly declares this truth in lib. 1. De dignitate conditionis humanae, cap. 11., where having premised: As God is one, always everywhere whole, vivifying, moving, and governing all things: so the soul in its body flourishes whole everywhere, vivifying, moving it, and governing it. Next, that as God is, lives, and is wise, so the soul according to its own mode is, lives, and is wise.

Then he subjoins that which more nearly touches the Trinity: Although that [soul] is of one nature, nevertheless it has three dignities in itself, namely, intellect, will, and memory. Which same thing, though designated in the Gospel in other words, when it is said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind: that is, with the whole intellect, and with the whole will, and with the whole memory. Is it not as the Son is generated from the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son: so will is generated from intellect, and again from both of these proceeds memory, etc. And as God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit is; nevertheless there are not three gods, but one God, having three persons: so also the soul-intellect, the soul-will, the soul-memory, yet not three souls in one body, but one soul having three dignities, and in these three our interior man bears wondrously His image in its nature. — St. Gregory of Nyssa weighs this notion otherwise in the question concerning the image of God, affirming that our soul shadows forth the divine Trinity through the faculties of concupiscence, ratiocination, and irascibility: that through the faculty of concupiscence indeed it be joined with God in charity: but through the faculty of ratiocination it receive from Him science and wisdom: finally through the force of irascibility it be able to withstand the spirits of wickedness; and in these three it shadows forth and expresses also that, to the image of God.

For in three ways God in the Trinity administers and governs three parts, namely the heavenly and earthly and subterranean, with a certain virtue of Creator, by His providence, and with the authority of Judge: since all things which God executes He accomplishes by one of these three modes; either as Founder, or as Providing, or as Chastising. But this explication is rather metaphorical and mystical than literal and accommodated to the genuine sense of Sacred Scripture. It must be said therefore that our soul bears the image of the divine Trinity in this, that since it is a spiritual, incorruptible, and immortal substance, it expresses the divine essence equally spiritual and immortal. But by its three faculties, namely intellect, will, and memory, it reflects the Trinity of Persons. Not indeed quatenus those faculties of the soul pre-exist; because, says the Doctor in 2. distinct. 16. quaest. unica num. 20., those faculties are distinguished from the soul, quoad they are its faculties, not really but only formally; and therefore as such cannot express three divine Persons really distinct from one another; but those divine persons they express and shadow forth only quatenus namely those faculties themselves are under the acts of understanding, willing, and remembering. So that the very same soul, as it is the productive principle of intellection, represents the Father; and as it understands, and has in itself the word produced, represents the Son; and finally as it has love produced, represents the Holy Spirit: because as the Holy Spirit presupposes the Father and the Son, without whom He cannot be, and from whom He is really distinguished: so love cannot be without cognition, and the productive principle of cognition, which is the fecund memory, namely the intellect with the object present to itself.

You will object 1. The image representing the three Persons of the Trinity ought to be perpetual in the soul: but the faculties of the soul are not perpetually under their acts really distinct: therefore they do not represent three divine Persons, quatenus they are under those acts: therefore they represent them only quatenus they are faculties. — I distinguish the major, says the Doctor in the same place num. 21.: The image ought to be perpetual, quatenus considered formally, I deny: quatenus considered fundamentally and radically, I concede: For the image of the Trinity, he says, is not complete in the soul considered absolutely with its powers, except in root: but as it is under its acts, by community of its essence, it represents the Trinity: and thus the image consists in three really distinct things, but not in powers, which are not really distinguished.

You will object 2. If the image of the Trinity did not consist in powers really distinct, chiefly because the powers would not be really distinct: but so they are: therefore, etc. The minor is proved: if they were not so distinct, but really identified, it could be said that intellect is will: but this is inconvenient; because otherwise it could be said that we understand through will, and will through intellect, which is absurd. — He answers there the Doctor by denying the minor together with the major of proof: for although of really identified things it could be said that one is really the other; nevertheless it cannot be said that one is the other absolutely, especially if the one and the other be posited abstractly; whence although animality be identified with man, and be of his essence, nevertheless it cannot be said, man is animality: therefore since intellect is something abstract not concerning will formally, and will is something abstract not concerning intellect, it cannot be said, intellect is will.

You ask: Is there any difference between being the image and being to the image of God?

I answer, this to be the sentiment of certain holy Fathers, that only the divine Son is to be called the perfect and substantial image of God: But man is to the image, such that that "to" signifies a certain access of man to God, from whom nevertheless he stands at an infinite interval. Thus St. Ambrose in caput 22. Lucae writes: Christ alone is the full image of God, on account of the express unity in Himself of paternal splendor: But the just man is to the image of God, if on account of imitating the likeness of divine conversation he despise this world through the knowledge of God. Clement of Alexandria subscribes: The image of God, he says, is His Word, and the germane Son of the mind, the divine Word, the light of the archetypal light: but the image of the Word is man, and indeed the mind which is in man; who therefore is said to be made to the image and likeness of God, as one who by potency of heart has been assimilated to the divine Word, and thenceforward rational. — This same sentiment St. Augustine had taught in lib. 83. quaestionum quaest. 51. But he corrected it afterward in lib. 1. Retractationum c. 26. For he had read in St. Paul, of the former Epistle ad Corinth. cap. 11., that man is called the image of God; which he lucidly expounds lib. 1. De Trinitate cap. 6.: There are, he says, those who so distinguish, that they wish the Son to be the image; but man not the image; both of which the Apostle refutes in us, saying, a man indeed ought not to veil his head, since he is the image and glory of God; he does not say to the image, but image; which image nevertheless, although elsewhere it be said to the image, is not said quasi to the Son, because the image is equal to the Father; Otherwise he would not say to the image, ours, how so ours, when the Son alone is the image of the Father? But on account of the unequal, as we said, likeness, man is said to be to the image: and therefore ours, that man might be the image of the Trinity: not equal to the Trinity, as the Son is to the Father: but approaching, as was said, with a certain likeness, even as in things distant a certain nearness is signified, not of place, but of a certain imitation.